A change of heart on super PACs by Obama

It must have been a frightening spectacle for Barack Obama’s re-election team, watching the president’s Republican challengers savage one another from Iowa to Florida with millions in super PAC dollars.

The super PAC cash supporting Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich — allowing each side to brutalize the other with TV ad campaigns — is just a warm-up to the money that will flow when Obama is the target.

Obama acknowledged this week that his campaign is now actively soliciting for super PAC contributions. That’s a disappointing, 180-degree turnaround for the president. And it is as lamentable as it was predictable.

In 2010, Obama criticized the Supreme Court for its Citizens United ruling, granting First Amendment free speech protections to corporations.

By allowing the Exxons of the world to spend freely to support or defeat any candidate they choose, the Supreme Court said that spending millions for the votes of elected officials is no longer “corruption.” It’s free expression.

In his 2010 State of the Union address, Obama said: “I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests or, worse, by foreign entities.”

But on Monday, Obama’s campaign manager, Jim Messina, said: “With so much at stake, we can’t allow for two sets of rules in this election, whereby the Republican nominee is the beneficiary of unlimited spending and Democrats unilaterally disarm.”

It’s disappointing to watch Obama abandon his principled stand and he deserves to be criticized for it. However, when faced with real numbers — Republican-leaning super PACs have raised more than $60 million; Democratic counterparts have raised less than $10 million — idealists can wish Obama had stood his ground; realists know better.